Letter to Louis

AS HEARD ON BBC RADIO 4 'A searingly honest depiction of raising a disabled child . . . Intimate, sometimes heartbreaking and often funny, this letter of love is essential reading.' Mail on Sunday 'It's so good - a beautiful piece of writing that really did have me gripped from the first page. What an achievement.' Cathy Rentenbrink, bestselling author of The Last Act of Love 'Heartbreaking . . . beautifully written . . . in equal measure, admirable, uplifting, terrifying.' Louise Doughty, Observer This is a memoir about hope - hope in others, hope in systems, and hope for the future. I've never quite known where to begin when someone asks me what I've been up to. I've never quite known how to explain what our daily life is like. I wanted to write how it is in order to give others a greater understanding of disability and caring. And to be totally honest, I wanted to write something that would make people consider being Louis's friend. So here is me introducing you: Louis, this is your story. Readers, this is my son.

Alison White grew up in Sheffield, studied in Leeds and moved to Glasgow, where she set up her own landscape architecture business. In 1996 Alison's first child, Louis, was delivered by emergency caesarean section at thirty-two weeks' gestation. He suffered severe brain damage due to her undetected pre-eclampsia within hours of his birth, and has cerebral palsy and learning difficulties. From this point Alison's life drastically changed. In 2003 Alison left Scotland to live remotely in South West Wales with her husband, Greg, and their three children, Louis, Natasha and Jack, where they still live today. Here they built a house to meet Louis's needs and were able to allow their younger two children to run wild.